It's Still Life

A Month of Writing Negative Space Poetry

The End

my mother grew hydrangeas
the colour of cotton,

pulled weeds barehanded,
put slugs on the birdfeeder.

the others she speared
with a nail
at the end of a broom handle,

pitched them
into the road.

she took a scythe
to the brambles
but picked the blackberries
first.

made jam
with too many seeds.

at seventy-two
she thought she had dysentery.

it was a bad oyster.

in the end, I reckon
she slipped into heaven
through the back door.